Windermere at Waterhead...

A sour-faced man poked his head out from the cabin of his brand new sailing boat and gave me a glare. “It’s private”, he pronounced, before ducking back inside.

On a gorgeous summer evening, calm and untroubled, I was taking a leisurely stroll around the marina, hopefully doing nothing to disturb the tranquility of the scene. The guy could have smiled. He could have said “Hello”. He could have rhapsodised about how good it was to be alive and well and in control of his faculties, able to enjoy some quality leisure time on Windermere, rather than, say, working late at the office or being stuck in a stationary queue of traffic on the M6.

The English language is the perfect medium to express nuances of pleasure: the warmth of the evening and the pride of new yacht ownership. He could have pointed out the silky, ever-changing reflections in the water as a blood-red ball of a sun dipped down towards the familiar silhouette of the Langdale Pikes beyond the northern reaches of the lake. Conversations can spin into an infinity of possibliities, if you have a convivial nature and time to spare.

But no. He was neither convivial nor conversational. And the merest glimpse of a photographer - obviously not a member, unless the club had abandoned its dress code - was enough to darken his mood. “It’s private” were only two words he could muster, on this fine summer’s evening.

He was right, of course. I was trespassing: in a thoughtful, principled way, I like to think, but trespassing all the same. The marina is a private club for well-heeled folk, with a hefty annual fee securing a berth for their floating gin palaces. Members can enjoy the company of like-minded people, without having to rub shoulders with riff-raff like me. And, once or twice a year, who knows, they may even find the time to rig their yachts and go for a sail.

While I see the the lakeland landscape as a wonderful resource for everyone to share, for some people it’s a commodity, a reward for their success in the world of business. Once they’ve bought up their Cumbrian Camelots, with panoramic lakeside views, they try to pull up the drawbridge after them. It’s never quite enough to look at a beautifiul view; the pleasure’s not complete until that view is denied to others. A bleak sort of pleasure, you might think.

Up go the walls, the fences, the fast-growing leylandi hedges and a plethora of signs to keep the riff-raff out. Why do landowners deny access to walkers? Because they can, that’s why. Wherever you look around the Lake District, there are signs that say ‘Private’. There’s ‘Strictly Private’ too, raising the stakes for those visitors who might otherwise imagine that ‘Private’, unqualified, means “Come on in, old friend, put your feet up, have a beer, make yourself at home”.

The conservation movement has a splendid slogan: “Not ours, but ours to look after”. The preponderance of prohibitive signs delivers a rather different message: “It’s not your land, it’s mine. Now clear off, sharpish, before I set the dogs on you”…